SASSOON'S REVOLUTION

HAIRDRESSING legend Vidal Sassoon is to be hailed as an anti-fascist revolutionary in a new BBC Radio 4 documentary. In A Rage in Dalston, Alan Dein takes a look at Sassoon's youth as part of the 43 Group, a movement founded in 1943 by a Jewish ex-serviceman, which regularly clashed with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in East London following the conclusion of World War II. Recalling his experiences, Sassoon - a trainee hairdresser at the time - remembers going into work following a particularly bad scuffle: "I'll never forget. I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise," he says. "It had been a difficult night, and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' and I said, 'Oh nothing, madam, I slipped on a hairpin.'" A Rage in Dalston airs on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow, Saturday 19 April, at 8pm as part of the station's Archive Hour program. (April 18 2008, AM) Leisa Barnett